Panama's narco-president Ricardo Martinelli is joining the tin-pot crowd and has announced that he will file criminal charges against Costa Rica's El País, for an article published there that accuses him of being involved in money laundering and "mafia style government", among other things.
Is this a guilty plea from our beloved tyrant? We are tempted to think so. Why, for example, hasn't he made his campaign finances public - each and every detail of them - if he is innocent of accepting narco funding for his election campaign?
Why have no details been released about an investigation into his cousin and treasurer of his political party whom he now all of a sudden calls "the black sheep of my family" after having worked with him side by side for almost a decade?
Why hasn't the case of his treasurer funneling money through IDAAN into Cambio Democratico's accounts been prosecuted?
Would he allow an independent (and thus necessarily foreign) audit of the Super99 empire to clear it of money laundering suspicions?
No, his "I'll sue them" is all but convincing if he wants to claim innocence on all accusations. And using criminal libel laws is soooo last century anyway.